A Single Moment
by Roguie
Summary: Post AJBAC - A short peek into Logan's life sometime after Max has "died". Lonliness makes a good friend late at night... but hope makes a better friend at dawn.


  
  
A/N: Well, I've been asked recently why it is that in all my stories of late, save Heat and Cycles, I've been torturing poor Logan with Max's believed demise. I dunno, it's just fun and he seems to have such a depth for anguish, how can one not just dig in and make him hurt a little more? :P I'm sure come the new season my stories will take on a more romantic tone again, although I do have to write the occasional mega angst story to keep me sane. :) When they give me sap on screen, I'll write sap.. for now, let me have my fun. :P It's not often I get presumed dead lover plot twists to work with. :P Gods I love Dark Angel. :P  
  
For all those that could possibly have been waiting, the newest chapter of Heat and Cycles will be posted within the next week. Please check in on the story, and enjoy. :) Since it's a few pages down the line these days, I figured I'd use Moment to advertise. :P  
  
Characters of Dark Angel are not mine, I just like to borrow them periodically and mutate their inner voices. What can I say? It's fun. :P  
  
My thanks to Chris for her wonderful beta job. :) She took my stilted sentances and actually breathed sense into them, and that is more than appreciated. :)  
  
Enjoy, and thanks for reading. :)  
  
~Dani  
  
  
  
  
A Single Moment  
  
~ Danae Bowen  
  
Why was it so hard to live without someone you never really had in the first place? She was in his life, but never his. Why was it so difficult to deal with it now that she was gone?  
  
He knew he was supposed to grieve, that nobody would blame him if he cried, and yet, now, he couldn't. He'd cried enough that first night to last the rest of his life, he supposed. There was only an empty, dark, lonely place in his chest where she used to reside.  
  
A shot of whiskey poured past his lips, burning his already raw throat as it traveled through his body. The alcohol didn't dull the darkness threatening him, didn't fill that lonely place, but at least when the bottle matched emptiness against Logan's heart, he could sleep.  
  
On the few occasions that he did venture out, he hardly noticed when the people near him steered a wide berth around the crip that no longer even cared if he ever walked unassisted again. His normally spiked hair was flat against his head; his normally tasteful style had been replaced with flannel shirts and tattered jeans. He said nothing when Bling tried to force his exercises upon him. The exosuit lay forgotten in a closet. He hadn't cooked anything decent in weeks.  
  
Who was it that said the love of a good woman couldn't kill you? She'd certainly killed a part of him. For weeks, the papers wondered about the disappearance of the mysterious cable hacker, Eyes Only. Then they just didn't care anymore. Logan understood. He just didn't care anymore himself.  
  
His eyes trailed over to his computer, long since abandoned to collect a thin layer of dust from non-use. His fingers twitched reflexively and, for the briefest of moments, he considered turning the machine on, finding out what he'd missed.  
  
Then the question became, would turning on his computer make Max's death any less real? Would doing the things that the Logan Cale of six months ago would do make the emptiness go away? That's what nobody understood about him; Logan didn't want the emptiness to disappear. The hole in his heart kept him company through the long, dark nights and endless, dreary days. It had become a familiar friend, one he hadn't driven away in those first few weeks after Max's death. The ache had replaced the love he'd felt for her, and was now as comforting as his love had been agonizing. The emptiness reminded him, never let him forget, that once there had been a beautiful girl with mischievous brown eyes, dark bouncy hair, and a flare for the exotic that, for one amazing year, had existed in his life. The loneliness made sure that he always would know the radiance of her smile, the longing in the sweet kisses with which she'd tortured him, the pain in her perfect face when she'd finally confessed everything to him, from her mistakes to her love for the man he'd once been. The pain seemed to remind him of the sight of her lying in his arms, her life simply slipping away, knowing that there was nothing the self-deluded Eyes Only could do to save her. He'd let her die, even though she'd barely begun to whisper her presence to the world. He let Manticore rip away from him the one person that possibly could have ever made life in this destroyed world worth living.  
  
Funny how easily self-loathing over came self-pity. He used to want to put a bullet into his brain because he was only half a man. Now it seemed he was half a man with only half a soul. Goes to show you, things can always get worse.   
  
What an idiot he'd been not to have seen it earlier, not to have done anything about it before it was too late. One night could have made this bearable; a lifetime of memories in an instant, but instead, there was emptiness waiting to take him back to loneliness. His two best friends now.  
  
Did he want to kill himself like the others feared? No. That would be too easy. Why should he get to be oblivious to everything when he couldn't help her the one time she really needed him.  
  
Clasping a hand over his mouth to still the whiskey that threatened to rise from his stomach, he chased away the memory of her lifeless eyes. Her dead stare haunted him enough in his sleep; he didn't need to think about it now.  
  
He breathed in shallowly, willing his body to control itself. He had almost succeeded, when his eyes caught sight of a red bandana she'd left behind one day. Suddenly, his mind was assaulted with more memories. Her blood. God, it'd been everywhere: on Max, on the ground, on him. He'd known she was going to die before he'd even accepted that she'd been hurt. He couldn't stop the tears, though he'd remained oblivious to them until it was over. All he knew was that his last view of Max had been fuzzy; he wished now he'd kept it together for a little longer. All his memories of her were stained red by her blood and blurred by his tears. Nothing was clear anymore.  
  
There was a very good possibility that he'd gone insane and just hadn't realized it yet. He rolled over to the computer and fiddled with the keys a second before finally turning it on. How could the sight of her dying in his arms overshadow every memory? Logan didn't think he'd ever understand completely.  
  
For the first time since Max died, he slipped into his Eyes Only files and began digging about. Several of his contacts had tried to reach him, and he sifted through their emails without much interest. The last email, however, caught his eye. It was from no one he recognized; screen name, Within. Logan virus scanned the document before opening it, curious how this had come to him. He opened the source code and began tracking it back through the accounts it had bounced through, before finally ending up at a government address. He frowned. It made him uncomfortable to know that, apparently, he was so easily found. It should have taken longer for any agency to decipher his address, considering the number of false sources he ran each letter through before it got to him. Cautiously, he opened the email and for the first time in months, interest sparked in his crystal blue eyes.  
  
Eyes Only,  
  
We are in communication through a   
mutual acquaintance. Do not respond  
to this letter. I will contact you  
at some future point when it is safe  
for us both.  
  
Our friend has requested that you be  
told to, quote, "Rediscover the   
patience we've both lost. In other   
words, chill. All the time in the   
world, remember?"  
  
I will know when you have read this.  
A plan is ready, but will require your  
assistance. Until I hear otherwise, I  
will assume your cooperation is ours.  
  
Take the advice of our friend and be  
patient. I will be in contact shortly.  
  
Within.  
  
Logan took a deep breath, his heart beating rapidly as he spun in place, glancing at each of his windows, expecting to be watched, but there was nothing. He spun back to the computer, his hand rising to touch the words carried in quotations. His face began to lighten, his eyes looking that much less haunted as he read and read again the very short quote. Even through the stark, impersonal computer screen and typewritten words, he knew that voice.  
  
"Max."  
  
Any risk would be worth bringing her home to him.  
  
Funny how a single year could make a person so important, a single moment could take it all away, and a single letter could breath hope back into a crumbling man.  
  
If this were true, he vowed to himself silently, not a single second after she got home would be wasted.  
  
If it weren't, he'd die happily, believing that there was a possibility she was out there, somewhere, alive and waiting to come home.  
  
Maybe this time, he could do something to save her.  
  
End.  



End file.
